Late July I was contacted by The Southport Branch of The Royal British Legion and they asked if would be interested in a job for them that involved a very important visitor to Southport to rededicate the towns War memorial. I checked my calendar and I was free, so I replied sure. Any further details, I had times and places but no word on the VIP or VVIP as was mentioned in the mail. They added there would be a press pit but I would be the only photographer allowed free unlimited access to the area. There would be national coverage etc, just me with access. I’m in.
There would also be "briefings" which I should attend and an embargo on all information going out.
First off, if I hadn't met the people getting in touch I would have thought it was a wind up.
But no a few weeks later it was announced it would be HRH Princess Anne, rededicating the Towns War Memorial.
So why me, I had worked with one of the organisers on a Pod cast about of all things using your phone to capture sunsets and as we are on the coast, we do get some crackers.
That Blog here.
https://www.davebrownphotography.co.uk/blog/2023/5/sunsets-and-how-to-get-the-best-image-from-your-phone
Sarah from RBL had also seen on my website my images from previous years Remembrance Sunday Services. Kindly put the two together and here we are.
The briefings were very interesting, the level of minute detail that has to be ticked off is huge and a rare insight I had to this.
Finally me, I had to come up with a game plan that would document the day. From the assembly at Victoria Park for the march down Lord Street. To the Principals arrival at the memorial, the Service, and a possible walkabout. Meeting the Cadets, Veterans other invited guests, the gathering crowds.
Planning where to be standing as the National Anthem played to get a suitable image just as it ended.
I was informed HRH will under no circumstances, stop or pose for a photograph, so don’t ask. Flash photography to be kept to a minimum and none outside.
So basically a combination of street photography, press work, wedding work, portraiture but mainly tell the story of the event.
So to my plans, my Fujifilm XT3s will do nicely, additional grips for battery life. We would be outside in the main so the 18/55 standard zoom complimented by a Fujifilm loan of the 50/140 F2.8 for a bit of reach and incredible image quality. I packed my 70/300 but it stayed in the bag. Speedlights or flash units, only on the indoor reception meet and greet,
I have been using my Fuji’s for nearly three years now and they are exceptional bits of kit, great to handle in a very dynamic situation. By now my muscle memory around the camera is complete and everything just falls to hand.
First off, dress smartish, but it is a working day. Good footwear because I’m on my feet for all of it.
Taxi down to Victoria Park where the parade was assembling, Sun was shining everyone from the most junior cadet to the most senior veteran look smart and ready to go.
Once the RAF Band arrived and made their way to the head of the Parade, it was time to get busy.
Few photographs of the assembly, some informal candid’s, some line ups.
Then it was a case of following the Parade down Lord Street. Quite a few other photographers joined me at the South end of the road but that all changed as we approached the security barriers, at that point I was allowed through and had the road to myself. Felt very strange if I’m honest.
Once at the Cenotaph I just grabbed some general images, the crowd, and people getting into their respective positions.
Then at just before 12 get into position for the arrival.
Close protection introduced themselves and we had a short chat just as the cars came into view.
Then we were truly off to the races.
Follow the brief and try to stick to my plan.
For me the day went well, cameras worked a charm and I got some great images.
For the organisers at Royal British Legion Southport, the day went very well, in no small part to the organisational skills of those involved.
Hopefully I showed the success of the day and of Southport itself.
I had to quick edit a group of ten images which had to be Palace verified as they form part of the media package. (Another first, emails to The Palace).
I think I got a nod just as the cars sped away, I think.
Technically a Royal Photographer, probably not, but one hell of a job to stick on my CV.
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Welcome back, it’s been a while.
With autumn on the way the Sky over Southport is going to get a lot more dramatic at Sunset than it has been over the summer months. Saturday was one such night. As the evening drew in it was becoming pretty apparent the Sky was going to be lit up with the setting Sun back lighting the large cloud formations forming off the North West coast.
I grabbed my camera bag and set off to the Sea front.
First off, choice of gear.
My workhorse camera body, Fujifilms excellent XT3, it’s been superseded by two newer generations but this is still a very capable camera.
Lens choice, just two, my Fujifilm 10/24mm for those wide vistas plus for detail and zooming into the shoreline shots, my Fujifilm 70/300mm.
All fit nicely into my Domke camera bag.
Now you can capture sunsets on your phone and if you have read my previous blog there are some hints and tips on how to do this. But I much prefer my camera, for a number of reasons.
One, I just like using my camera gear it gives me much more control over the image and is just so much nicer to use. Two, on a technical level the image sensor is so much larger which gives me more dynamic range (the difference between light and dark) so the quality of the final image will be much better. That dynamic range come is very handy photographing Sunsets where you have the bright Sun and deep dark clouds.
Your eyes have a much greater dynamic range that any camera can see outside of kit NASA use. So we have to balance what the camera can see.
My camera captures the image in what is termed a RAW file, unlike most phones which capture in what is known as a jpeg. With a RAW file (No, it’s not an acronym, its just a term) I capture light and colour values which will enable much more latitude in the edit stage. With a jpeg these values are essentially baked into the image, so can be restrictive when editing.
So parked up and ready to go, I just look for a decent composition (all the elements within the image, how much cloud, what part of the cloud, do I include some beach etc). Once that is decided I set my camera. I have three values to consider.
ISO, how sensitive the sensor is to light, the lower the value the higher quality of image. but this can be raised as it gets darker.
Aperture, how much of the image will be in focus.
Shutter speed, will this be fast enough to allow enough light in to the sensor and reduce the effect of camera shake, more when zoomed out to 300mm when the slightest movement of my hand holding the camera is amplified at the point of focus. Offset slightly by Fuji’s lens stabilisation system. Which allows a slower shutter speed while keeping the point of focus sharp?
My top tip when photographing sunsets is to under expose the image slightly to save the highlights (bright bits) blowing out and being so bright there is no retrievable data.I can retrieve data in dark area like clouds but much less so in super bright areas.
Once I have my images its home for a brew and a sit down, ill sort the images out in the morning.
Now comes the edit, all the images are copied onto my computer and I open my image edit software which for me and so many other photographers is Adobe Lightroom. A powerful bit of software, which will enable me to edit the image to my taste, hopefully staying true to what I saw with my eye.
If you photograph with RAW you require some sort of software to edit unlike Jpeg which as I mentioned is essentially the final image (unless you slap an Insta filter over it, but that’s for another blog).
Just to compare the capture to the final image, here we have the two images. You will notice the capture is quite flat in appearance, not much detail. It’s all there , I just have to bring it out.
Image at capture
Image once in Lightroom no adjustment all values set to zero.
Edited image
Image in Lightroom with adjusted values, see the sliders to the right of the image.
Once I have adjusted the exposure to where I want it to be (and remember it’s all subjective, what I like others may not). Take down the highlights, open up the shadows and dial in some detail. I can then work on the light values to bring out what my eye saw. This involves brightening up the blues, greens and purples which adds the detail I could see in the clouds. Not too much otherwise it just looks over cooked and to processed. Which is why I have left saturation alone. Phone cameras have a tendency to over saturate the colours making them much more vibrant so they pop of the screen. This is usually a dead giveaway as to if the image has been caught on phone.
Its then just small, adjustments before saving to my hard drive and posting on the Socials, Facebook etc.
So is it cheating, well not really? I don’t just want to capture what I see but what I felt the image should be at the moment of capture.
Is it photo shopped, well no? I didn’t require the image to go into Photoshop, but if it required I would. I’m not editing for the papers, but for myself. I still try to maintain a reality to the image, so no false colours and I endeavour to keep the edit subtle.
Anyway a little behind the image look into how the image is captured and edited.
Thanks to everyone who has kindly commented on the posts.
Till next time, Dave
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Its been a short while, but welcome back.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to take part in a podcast from the Lovely people over at Stand Up for Southport.
Surprise and shock were my first reactions followed by fear if I’m to be totally honest.
After a little think and a reassurance that I would survive the experience I said yes.
The topic of the podcast would be a short piece on getting the best possible sunset photo from your phone as that’s the camera you most probably you would be carrying with you if you came across a nice sunset and wanted to capture it.
I was contacted by Sarah who would be actually interviewing me and we arranged to meet down on the Southport shore.
Well we hit the jackpot on Sunsets. The day before was grey and the day after wasn’t much better but the Tuesday night was about as good a Sunset as you would get any time of the year.
So what makes for a good sunset, being in Ibiza would be a good start , however the budget wouldn’t stretch that far and if you have been to the Sunset at Cafe del Mar In San Antonio you would know it’s a bit noisy , nice vibe but all the microlites and power boats going by, ruins it a bit.
For me and this is very much a personal thing, is I like a bit of cloud at the end of the day. Not enough to obscure the Sunset but enough to capture the light as the Sun sets deeper over the horizon. The cloud will turn a golden orange glow and depending on the type of cloud, will lead to some very interesting colours and shapes. Without cloud it’s “just” a big orange ball getting lower in an increasingly deep blue sky.
So a nice mix of a bit of cloud, but not too much and a nice bright Sun.
If you’re going to the Sea front it’s always nice to get there a little early as you get to what’s referred to as the Golden hour. It’s not exactly an hour but that makes it easy to remember. All those soft golden hued Hollywood favourite movies tend to get shot about this time. The light is just lovely, not harsh as during mid day and as the Sun gets lower and the light waves get longer through the sky the colours change, orange through to reds. It really can be a wonderful sight.
So to get the best out of your phone, you really need to set it up correctly.
First of, use the phones native camera, not an app like instagram or Facebook. These all add their own ingredients to the image. So just turn on your mobile camera. While you’re at it turn off all filters, again these may degrade the photo.
On all phones you can turn on a grid guide, it looks like your screen has nine boxes with a thin line denoting the boxes. These will help you keep the horizon straight but they don’t show up on the final image. They can be found in your camera menu.
Most mobile cameras are fully automatic so shooting a Sunset can trip it up. If your image is to bright and your not getting all those colours simply bring down the exposure by touching your screen in a bright spot and you mobile will compensate. If the image is to dark then touch the screen in a dark part of the image and it should brighten up. If you’re feeling confident set your mobile into fully manual mode (it will be in the menu) and you will have full control of the exposure.
If you can get some foreground interest, some people silhouetted against the sky, a structure (like our Pier) again this will be in silhouette as you phone will be exposing for the sky. Get creative look for puddles where you could possibly get some reflections into the shot. Hold your phone steady and take that shot. Once you have the shot maybe it’s time to simply put the phone away and just enjoy the moment.
If you are going the beach for that killer Sunset shot, just a word of caution, sands shift and if the tides not long out they may be very soft and you could find yourself in a spot of bother and don’t forget the Sun is setting so it’s going to get dark pretty fast pretty soon. You’re not on assignment for National Geographic (which would be very nice indeed) so above all stay safe.
All the images for this blog were shot on my four year old Huawei P30 nothing really special. Did I have my “proper” camera with me, yes but for this it stayed in the bag.
Many thanks to Andrew Brown of Stand Up For Southport for the suggestion and Sarah for the podcast.
In tandem with the podcast I have made available 12 of my favourite Sunsets from the last year or so, on my website. They are sized for desktop, laptop, Android/IOS Pad screens. They are free for personal use to replace any of the generic ones that came with your device. Just click on the download icon if on a mobile. If viewing on a Desktop or laptop it’s just above the image, look for the “Download” click and select original.
Just click on the link below (or copy and paste) to take you to the Sunset download gallery.
https://www.davebrownphotography.co.uk/p796234266
Stand up for Southport Podcast below.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4LGNQRMwNeDaNqOcAljnE3?si=kcRiMgImQ8aQkDHdEORO4Q&fbclid=IwAR0DO_J9AUJWduQM2b0BNAcSS8PeIOSAhnDPc7maNnybre9DjMyPdXAdY0s&nd=1
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-stand-up-for-southport-podcast/id1672830803?i=1000613263764
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Hello again and welcome back
Traditional portrait photography (it’s all in the eyes)
Last time wrote about the genre of Environmental portraiture, the process of capturing the subject in a place, work or otherwise that including the background for context.
Today I want to strip back to basics, just the subject, no distractions, just me, my camera, a light or two and the sitter.
Possibly one of the more personal forms of photography, in that as a photographer I am trying to catch a little bit of you at that moment of pressing the shutter button.
It’s a very nuanced moment and the image can be made or broken by a tilt of the head a squint in the eye, a lift of the chin and you will only get a decent portrait if the sitter buys in to the occasion.
A more religious person than me may say it’s trying to capture a bit of your soul.
In my “Codgers21” project, I took portraits of Ex Merseyside Fire fighters at a monthly meeting. I knew this would take a few months and I wanted consistency across the series. For this I went with the same camera, the same lens, one light in the same modifier (a small umbrella). Not only was this essential for portability, it also was a very quick set up and tear down, requiring very little space in the function room we used.
The rest of the gallery can be found here and fun fact there is a Boston Marathon Winner among them.
https://www.zenfolio.com/davebrownphotography/e/p612146512
This for me was quite an important project as some of the members are getting on and I felt it was important to capture a portrait as a memory, it was joked “at least you’ll have a decent photo at your funeral”. As fire fighters share a very dark sense of humour (that comes with the job) .
That leads me to the importance of a portrait. It’s a moment in time, captured. I’m sure that like me your phone is full of family images captured on the fly but a more formal portrait can be a sense of occasion. When during the sitting, it is all about you and you alone.
For me, I much prefer to place a simple plain black background a few feet behind the sitter. This will give me a near absolute black upon which with the right illumination I can place the sitter. The fewer lights the better, if I can just use one I will certainly do that but if I require more and if it’s appropriate they will be used.
It’s not something that should take too much futzing about, the best ones are always the simplest ones.
However there are some techniques that can elevate the image. I like to place my main or key light so that I will get what is called a “catch light” in the eyes. This is a bright reflection of the light used caught in the eye and gives a sense of life. No lights in the eye for, just doesn’t look right. It’s barely noticeable but you certainly know some things are not right if it’s missing.
Catchlights in the eyes
We can get our inspiration from many places but the Grand Master painters are certainly up there.
It’s known as Rembrandt lighting for a reason. Named after the Dutch master it requires one light to illuminate one side of the face yet also leave a small triangle of light on the cheek of the furthest side of the face from the light just below the eye. This is a fairly standard lighting set up but it is still very effective. This gives depth and form, with maybe a hint of the dramatic.
Rembrandt lighting
Portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert by Rembrandt
This works especially in black and white and I really like black and white portraits.
You can even just use you flash straight at the subject for a much starker image, check out the photographer, Rankin’s Celebrity Portraits, there is an element of a Police Mugshot about them. There is no hiding from the lens in a Rankin portrait.
Check out his work here .
https://www.rankinphoto.co.uk/
Shooting against a white background adds its own complications as if the sitter is a distance away from the background it gets darker and darker the further away the sitter is , so you have to light the background as well as the sitter.
Shot for Mojos, Churchtown
This photo was for The American Crew Product annual competition so had to be black and white on white background. We also had to make sure the hair was well lit as its a Hair product company. So two lights on the background , one above for the hair and two for lighting the model.
But having all the gear and the technical knowledge should always take a backseat to the connection between you as the photographer and the sitter. There is also a third person to include in this and that is you, the viewer. There is no better compliment than when a associate of the sitter gives a nod and just casually mention’s, “yes that’s them”.
Some of my portraits, others can be found in the Portrait Gallery, please just follow the link.
https://www.davebrownphotography.co.uk/f815323908
If you would like a portrait either formal or environmental please get in touch here via the website or email@ [email protected]
Please leave any comments here on the website or under the Blog link on Facebook.
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Environmental portraits
Welcome back and today’s theme is the environmental portrait.
Put simply the environmental portrait is a genre of photography that places the subject to be photographed in the environment where they work, reside or just simply enjoy being there.
It’s the inclusion of their surroundings that will give the subject context.
If it’s for their work website or social media feeds then what you include in the photo will be a key element in the image.
In this first image it is immediately apparent what Eloise does; it was shot in her premise, RHR Male Grooming and not only includes part of her shop but also the tools of her trade, scissors , straight razor and the barbers chair.
This formed part of a Magazine submission for publication in Modern Barber a trade journal that highlighted Eloise’s shop.
The key here was the lighting, just enough to illuminate the background but not too much as to be a distraction from Elle who after all was the main subject.
But let’s go wider.
In this shot for Yates Motor engineers on Hart Street we wanted to include more of the background to show the working environment.
It was a greyish day outside but that gave us an even light coming through the skylights and I then set my camera to expose slightly darker for that light which we refer to as the ambient light. Unfortunately this left Leigh under exposed so to bring him to the foreground with a bit more pop, I simply place two Flash units out. The first to the right of the frame as a key or main light. The other to the left, just to lift the shadows.
In this image of Dan Rix at work at The Master Barbers Lord Street, he is actually working with a client. To get this shot I had a small flash unit off the camera and a remote trigger on the camera to get a slightly different angle on the light. If you notice the windows behind still have detail. Without using additional light Dan and his client would have been in silhouette or the background would have been to bright and the image would have less impact.
However you don’t always require additional lighting as on a good day in the right environment you can step outside place your subject in the frame and still have the context of their workplace, as in this shot with Fire fighter Alex at Kirkdale Fire Station. We lined up with the Appliance in its bay and had Alex stand central not only to the Appliance but also so she is framed by the Engine house doors.
It’s not all about the workplace as in this final image I was commissioned to capture Gill on the event of his 90th Birthday.
Sat in his favourite chair surrounded by photos of his family. A lovely way to spend an afternoon in his company.
The secret sauce, its all about balancing the ambient (background light) with the subject. Knowing how to place your lights and setting up your camera. No two scenes are ever the same and that's the fun.
Thanks once again for visiting my blog page.
If you require an environmental portrait please get in touch.
Either direct message here on Facebook or via email at;
You can also find me over on Instagram @davebrown2332
If you want to see some more portraits, then pop over to my portrait gallery..
https://www.davebrownphotography.co.uk/f815323908
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Headshots for business
Recently I was asked to take a headshot for someone who required one for a conference he was attending.
No problem.
Let’s start with the basics. What is a headshot?
It’s an introduction to possible clients who do not know you outside of an email address. They are a means of not only representing your company in the marketplace but also, obviously yourself. As they say first impressions still count, especially so in these days when visuals are all. The image could end up on business cards, company websites, Social media profiles etc. It may also end up as a backdrop to a presentation you are giving.
Potential clients, who will be looking at your website, will be looking for people who they want to do business with.
How should you as the client approach the sitting? First off, let’s talk clothes.
It all depends on the industry you are in .If the dress code is predominantly formal, shirt, tie, jacket etc. Then wear a shirt, tie and jacket. Keep the colours complimentary save the bright colours for going out and parties. Bright colours distract the eye, as humans we can’t help going to the brightest part of the picture, which should be your face, not your tie or scarf. It may also be that time to renew that threading shirt with something new. Under photo lights any flaw in the clothes does show up. Did I mention first impressions still count?
If the dress code is less formal, then by all means go with that but still the bright colour rule still applies. It’s your face that should be the centre of attention not your tee shirt however cool you may think it is.
Make up, keep it simple and appropriate to what you may wear to a business meeting. Any impermanent marks can be removed during the post process stage but removing make up can get very time consuming even in Photoshop.
As for jewellery, keep it simple again not too distracting. Your face should be the focus of the photo.
As a photographer it’s up to me to reassure the sitter it’s going to be OK. I’m there to give them a great image. Get them to relax and enjoy the process. Have your lights set up and ready to go. Try to find out any parameters that are required, such as colour of background, black, white or grey etc. These are the main colours for the business headshot as again bright colours distract. Though colour can be used but they are usually muted in tone.
All this can be discussed with the client prior to the session.
We were shooting against a black background, so a three light set up seemed appropriate. My main or key light was placed in front and off centre of my subject with another light opposite to provide a lift to the shadows. Finally a third light behind the sitter directed at the background set to low power. This gives a slight halo effect and gives separation so the head doesn’t appear to be just floating in a black void.
Behind the scene.
Firstly let’s get the colour right. For that I use a colour checker which combined with a calibrated monitor and software will ensure the colours you choose are the colours presented. That’s my first few shots of the session.
Accurate colours
Then we can focus on getting some fantastic images that will hopefully engage your present and future clients.
Giving direction is essential, especially if this is the sitters first time being the centre of attention. A tilt of the head and a slight change of posture can make or break the photo. It’s very incremental but can mean a world of difference to the final image.
The final result.
So you’re probably thinking why not use my phone, a couple of reasons. Firstly you will probably use the front facing camera so you can see what you look like. This particular camera on a phone is specifically made a wide angle as it’s meant to capture you and your friends out socialising. At arm’s length it will also distort your face and don’t forget to turn off the beauty feature. We all wish to be at bit younger but you also need to look like you, not a smudged version of yourself. Chances are the lighting will be off you may look a strange over saturated funky colour, again not the best first impression and just to say again, they still count.
If you require a professionally taken headshot for your business please get in touch.
As ever please leave any comments or questions below or contact me via the website, a DM on Facebook or email :
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Exposure, it’s all about the light.
Welcome back to my blog page and today it’s about exposure.
No, not about how many followers you may have on Instagram or Facebook but how much light is getting to your mobile camera sensor to get that fantastic photo.
It’s all about the light in photography and it can mean the difference between a truly great image that will attract attention and one that is merely ignored.
Exposure is expressed as a triangle, where the three sides work in harmony with each other to form an image.
The three sides are
Aperture.
How open or closed is the iris in the lens. With a camera lens this is variable and can be adjusted, with a phone it is set and not adjustable. The mobile manufacturers try to get the aperture as wide as they can to let in plenty of light because they design the camera for Social feeds, photos taken while out with friends and mainly indoors.
ISO
This is how sensitive the sensor is to light. At the lowest ISO setting it’s not very sensitive at all so dreadful for indoors but perfect for outdoors on a sunny day. As the mobile camera automatically compensates for lower indoor light it will energise the sensor, this however degrades the quality of the image as the higher the ISO goes. This is why a lot of indoor photos look a bit smudged and lacking detail.
Shutter speed.
How fast the camera shutter opens also dictates how much light hits that sensor. If the shutter speed is set to high an indoor image will be to dark if the shutter speed is set to low outside the image will be far too bright.
Luckily enough modern mobile phone cameras do their best to average everything out. However if you have bright areas and dark areas in the same scene, like in a bar, the phone will struggle to compensate for both, so it becomes an either or situation. With a portion of the image overly dark or overly bright.
So is there a way to get around this? Luckily enough there is. (To an extent)
As your phone is usually in automatic exposure mode, as you look at the screen just tap on it were its brightest or darkest and the phone will adjust giving you a brighter or darker image. Check for an area that is in the middle neither to bright or dark and tap there. That should give you a more evenly lit image. You can also adjust the exposure of the scene by once you have tapped the screen if you slide your finger up or down this tells the phone to adjust; at this point you are taking semi control of the exposure. Of course many mobiles come with a manual control adjustment so you can fully take over from the auto mode. At this point you will be setting the image to how you want it not the phone.
Another little trick is to turn on the HDR mode. HDR stand for High Dynamic Range and in this mode the camera will take a fast burst consisting of at least three images. One it thinks is the right exposure, one underexposed (a bit darker) and another one overexposed (a bit brighter). It then combines the three images into one for hopefully a more balanced photo.
You can use the built in flash or LED light on the phone but these produce a harsh light, not very flattering and again if the mobile is in auto mode everything outside of the flash range will be very dark, so you won’t get that sense of the place you’ve gone to.
Hope this has been of some help. It can get more complicated, much more in depth and for a photographer that’s where the challenge and the fun is.
If you have any questions please leave them in the comments ill try my best to answer them.
If you need a photographer, please get in touch.
Please leave a like if your so inclined, you know the usual Facebook stuff.
Till next time, Cheers, Dave
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Welcome back.
In my last post I did mention an App called Snapseed, so what is Snapseed?
Put simply, Snapseed is an application or App that is the mobile equivalent to Photoshop for the PC.
It’s free to use and available in Android or IOS and has a wonderful interface that makes it very easy to use.
Yes, there are numerous applications on the Play store that will give you many filters to overlay onto your image. However having used many myself the only one I now use on my phone is Snapseed.
Whether I have taken the photo on my phone or indeed on my camera and used the cameras WiFi to transfer onto my phone. It’s just a simple case of sharing the image into the Snapseed App and from there I can edit the image either with Snapseeds own built in filters for giving the image a black and white or a more hipster vintage look and these can be found in the Styles tab at the bottom of the App.
I much prefer to edit in the Tools section. From here I can tune the image to my liking, making it lighter, darker, more saturated, less saturated, open up the shadows, tone down the highlights. Watch out for going to crazy with Ambiance, this adjusts the contrast which adds punch but can lead to the photo just looking crazy.
You can crop, rotate and place text over the image. It really is a great piece of software, however with great power comes great responsibility as I get to see plenty of images that can only be described as, overcooked.
Once you're done you can export and save the image or share to your Social feeds.
All this is done with a simple swipe of your finger.
You can find plenty of video tutorials over on YouTube and it’s always well worth having a quick look and get to know the App.
Have fun, regards, Dave
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Welcome back.
So, why do some images look great and some just look less so?
Let's see how we can make mobile phone photos that much better, making you stand out from the blizzard of images on Socials feeds.
Most phones come with a multitude of lens configurations, with as many as three or four lenses. Covering ultra wide to telephoto beasts getting you really close to the subject. They all have a job to do and the camera's algorithm will help you sort out from wide to close in one move.
But let's look at perspective, if you photograph your subject from above with the wide lens, the top will dominate the image while the bottom disappears into the distance. For example, this bottle shot from above on the wide angle lens of my phone.
Conversely, subjects shot from the base will show the top disappearing into a point. This distorts the shape of the bottle.
The solution to this is to get level with the middle of the bottle, take a step or two back and use the zoom function, the bottle will then be in perspective.
This trick works across the board for numerous subject matters from food shots to portraits.
Just as a note, the above shots where taken on my four year old Huaewi mobile with a white background (in my case, a plain sheet of paper) with a few adjustments in Snapseed on my phone.
So what's Snapseed...Tell you later.
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There is an increasing use of mobile phone images used on a daily basis for business. Reasons are fairly straight forward, you already have one, quick to use and straight to social media feeds. So why do your mobile images look so bad after spending a fortune on your new phone?
First off let's praise the mobile phone, a pocket computer that can put you in touch with family and friends anywhere in the world, keep you on track with maps, video calls, take photos and the font of most of humanities knowledge available at the click of a virtual button.
Mobile manufacturers spends countless millions on improving the camera specifications every year to persuade you to part with your hard earned cash. I believe Apple has over 800 staff working on the camera alone. A major investment. So why are some of the photos you take for your family or business not so great?
Let's look at how they take a photo. The Camera sensor in a modern mobile is about 1cm (ish) with multiple lenses and they headline the sales pitch with massive megapixels. But is more better? Imagine a pixel as a bucket that catches light. The bigger the bucket, the more light it can capture, the more light, the higher quality image. So the larger the sensor, the better right? Maybe...
Mobile phones use computational photography to gather light in as many pixel sites and combine them to form an image. However, when the light is not bright e.g. in the evening or inside a building your phone will try to compensate for the low light.
It does this in a couple of ways.
One, it will slow the shutter speed down so low that blur will occur unless the phone is really steady and your subject is also rock steady.
The other way is to supercharge the sensor to make it more sensitive to light, the trade off with increasing what is known as the ISO sensitivity, is to introduce digital noise which again degrades and softens the image.
If you're outside on a sunny day you're golden, with plenty of light the mobile camera will not be stressed, every setting will be nominal and you get great results.
The sensor in an actual camera is much larger in size and in most cases with less megapixels, captures more light, generating higher quality results, especially indoors.
So how can you get better results with your phone? Simple really, and I'm sure you have guessed, either steady the phone and subject or get more light, preferably both.
There is an increasing market online for constant light sources that can range from a few pounds on Amazon (other outlets are available) for a small unit, to eye watering, bank balance busting solutions from the likes of Kino Flo.
So what do you look out for when you're buying? First, ensure the lights are safe as there are some out there that may not fully conform to UK safety specs, so buy from a reputable dealer. Ensure the lights, usually LED, are daylight balanced for accurate colours. A fair few come as RGB enabled so allow for different lighting effects. (I would keep clear of the large curly light bulb type as they're a bit rubbish).
The larger the subject the more powerful the light will have to be. You're not going to light up a person with a small torch but you do not
require a massive light set up if you're photographing the likes of jewellery.
You can also make the light source larger by placing it in what is called a soft box, this diffuses the light making it larger and less harsh.
The other solution is to hire a photographer who knows their camera system inside out as a trade tool and is knowledgeable about lighting.
On that note thanks for staying till the end, hope that helped a bit.
Next time I will have a go at how to get the best out of your mobile camera.
Regards, Dave
https://www.facebook.com/davebrownphotography.co.uk/
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